Tokyo Station: An Ambassador’s Diary

Tokyo Station, the captivating diary of Radu Șerban, ambassador to Japan between March 14, 2012 and August 14, 2016, is the starting point for a reflection on the notion of culture and civilization in terms of maximum otherness.In addition to highlighting his own diplomatic experience coupled with a prodigious culture, the author explores what Roland Barthes called the Empire of Signs, a “revolution in the ownership of symbolic systems,” a suite of codes in a world which sees good conduct as highly-praised individual performance. Without lacking an emotional aeration, cutting into relevant exoticism, Radu Şerban’s Japanese diary still represents the analysis of a lucid and polemical spirit confronted with the dream of a paradox. Japan appears here as a unique symbiosis between the tradition printed in the ritual of the most modest act of daily gesture and the hi-tech universe of one of the most advanced societies—bordering utopia.Inevitable and tempting, marked by the punctuation of a critical spirit, the comparison between East and West, between Japan and Romania offers the reader—be it by ricochet—a reflected identity profile, the coordinates of possible dialogues and a picturesque Balkan-Eastern narrative.
Angelo Mitchievici